TimmyPage
New member
I made some serious modifications to my strat this week. I essentially tore out the entirety of the electronics in this guitar and rebuilt it with a set of Whole Lotta Humbuckers. I was waiting for a sunny day to take pics of this guitar, but those don't exist in England so enjoy my bedroom lighting:
There will be a TL;DR at the end of this if you don't want to read a small essay. I'm just.. putting my years and years of academia to use.
The Setup:
I have all of the equipment to do this myself, but the pickups came with long screws (and it would be really hard for me to order the proper ones in this country) so I brought it to a professional to route the humbucker slots a little deeper, special thanks to Leon at Grizzly Guitars in London for that, dude does great work. It's also wired up with two volume controls and a master tone, making one of the knobs that says tone on it a lie.
As for the sound, my strat is an alder hardtail strat so it sounds a tiny bit more immediate and thick than a trem. I often describe it's voice as like an SG that cleared it's nose, but it still has a bit of that strat bounciness to it and the openness/brightness/clarity of a 25.5 scale guitar.
These pickups get compared to 59's a fair bit. I've tried the 59n a few times, and every time I do I kept thinking 'this pickup is ALMOST what I want'. I always felt that the smoothness of it was great, the clarity and brightness were wonderful, but I found the scooped mids to be a bit of a letdown. It ended up making the lows sound boomier and the highs more stinging or sterile.
One Minor Issue:
I can't really speak about how the pickups respond to changes in the volume knob at the moment, as the CTS pots I received have a really terrible and unmusical taper to them. I'm going to try adding a resistor to change the taper and if that doesn't work I might try some of the SD Bourns pots, or one of the custom taper Bareknuckle ones.
Neck Pickup:
The WLHn seems to fix that issue entirely, it has beautifully singing mids, which help keep the smooth lows and clear highs in check. Like others have said, I'd say it's a very 'even' sounding pickup, but very musical. It's also extremely punchy, which I feel is great for the jazz fusion and progressive music I play, and of course for british styled electric blues.
It's really good at soaking gain and keeping it's character too, I was just messing around with an overdrive pedal and increasing the gain on my amp the other day and I found it got an amazingly smooth and syrupy high gain/metal/shred neck sound, and I ended up relearning some Black Sabbath riffs from my high school days on it. It's probably the first neck humbucker I've tried that I enjoy high gain riffs on.
For cleaner sounds I will say it sounds really good, but the additional mids and punchiness take a little bit away from it in a jazz context, and I feel that the cleans in a 59n are 'prettier', but only very slightly. That being said, I'm talking very slight differences, I'd still feel very comfortable bringing this guitar into a jazz gig (as I have for years with the Cool Rails I had previously in the neck position of this guitar) or to a setting that requires pretty pristine clean tones. By far, it's the best neck humbucker I have ever played, I actually have trouble reviewing the bridge hum in comparison because it's hard for me to turn off the neck.
Bridge Humbucker:
This one is a lot different than anything I've tried in my guitar before. The lowest gain Bridge Humbucker I've ever used has been the PATB-3, and even that has a lot more output than people give it credit for.
The pickup has a fantastically beautiful clean tone. This may be the result of never using a lower output humbucker, but I find the clean sound on the bridge is full, clear, strong and punchy.
With gain, they have just a hint of bridge pickup twang and to them in my guitar, but without the intense honkiness that started to grate on me with the PATB-3 after almost 5 years of using it. The pickup is also not quite as fat as the PATB-3, but I'd say this is a really good thing as every single note in a chord will ring out clearly. That's sort of a stereotype to say, but I do feel that it has a naturally open and BRIGHT sound that allows you to play complex chord voicings under gain, and still have them come through with a fair bit of clarity.
When you dig in they get this cool classic 'KRANG' sound, I'm not really a classic rock player at all (I was big on it in highschool, before anyone asks about my username) but I'll be damned if anyone tries these pickups and doesn't want to do their best Angus Young or Jimmy Page impression. I think the Duncan site describes it best, in that they have just a touch of very musical compression, the bridge sounds open and 'big' but it compresses just the way you need it to when you want to accent a single note in a complex chord, or just when playing with dynamics in single note lines.
The bottom end is relatively tight (at least in comparison to the PATB-3 that was last in this guitar) but I wouldn't really call it a tight pickup. It's more about the sponginess and bounce. Think more in the range of EVH than Metallica. Modern metal players might want to look elsewhere but if you're more into the Scale the Summit, Periphery or Animals as Leaders prog metal sort of thing, the string clarity could do wonders for you.
Middle/Mixed/Interracial setting
The output is very well matched to the neck humbucker, once I got the heights dialed in for both there isn't a change in volume at all, making the middle position all the better. I've never been a fan of the middle position in an HH setup before, but having such a matched sound between the two really makes that middle position a 'halfway' point between the bridge and neck tones. The clean tone in this setting is the best, just the absolute best. It has all of the benefits of the clear, sparkling bridge and of the warm neck. It's just amazing.
Under gain, I've been doing the Jimmy Herring thing where I roll down the neck humbucker a touch to get a warmer version of the bridge tone. These pickups do his tone EXACTLY, for what it's worth. It's quickly becoming my go-to lead tone on this guitar. Doing the opposite and rolling off the bridge a touch is also becoming one of my favourite rhythm guitar tones on this guitar, it just sounds so jangly and open like the bridge WLH but with a dousing of warmth.
TL;DR
They're great. They are both really big, open warm, punchy and articulate. I use them for jazz, fusion and 'progressive' music, (what a terribly undescriptive term) as well as in the Soul/Blues band I play in, and in each setting they have elements that absolutely shine. They have very musical/singing mids and have a small touch of compression that feels amazing when you dig in. The cleans aren't the most pristine I've ever heard (and are a bit more towards the woody end of the spectrum, due to the mids, but that might me more your thing) and they are a touch too punchy in a solid-body guitar for trad jazz, but those are very minor concessions to how amazing these pickups sound for just about everything.
I'd gladly answer any questions or if there are any other elements I missed. Sorry for the sheer length of this, I was just in a writing mood.
There will be a TL;DR at the end of this if you don't want to read a small essay. I'm just.. putting my years and years of academia to use.
The Setup:
I have all of the equipment to do this myself, but the pickups came with long screws (and it would be really hard for me to order the proper ones in this country) so I brought it to a professional to route the humbucker slots a little deeper, special thanks to Leon at Grizzly Guitars in London for that, dude does great work. It's also wired up with two volume controls and a master tone, making one of the knobs that says tone on it a lie.
As for the sound, my strat is an alder hardtail strat so it sounds a tiny bit more immediate and thick than a trem. I often describe it's voice as like an SG that cleared it's nose, but it still has a bit of that strat bounciness to it and the openness/brightness/clarity of a 25.5 scale guitar.
These pickups get compared to 59's a fair bit. I've tried the 59n a few times, and every time I do I kept thinking 'this pickup is ALMOST what I want'. I always felt that the smoothness of it was great, the clarity and brightness were wonderful, but I found the scooped mids to be a bit of a letdown. It ended up making the lows sound boomier and the highs more stinging or sterile.
One Minor Issue:
I can't really speak about how the pickups respond to changes in the volume knob at the moment, as the CTS pots I received have a really terrible and unmusical taper to them. I'm going to try adding a resistor to change the taper and if that doesn't work I might try some of the SD Bourns pots, or one of the custom taper Bareknuckle ones.
Neck Pickup:
The WLHn seems to fix that issue entirely, it has beautifully singing mids, which help keep the smooth lows and clear highs in check. Like others have said, I'd say it's a very 'even' sounding pickup, but very musical. It's also extremely punchy, which I feel is great for the jazz fusion and progressive music I play, and of course for british styled electric blues.
It's really good at soaking gain and keeping it's character too, I was just messing around with an overdrive pedal and increasing the gain on my amp the other day and I found it got an amazingly smooth and syrupy high gain/metal/shred neck sound, and I ended up relearning some Black Sabbath riffs from my high school days on it. It's probably the first neck humbucker I've tried that I enjoy high gain riffs on.
For cleaner sounds I will say it sounds really good, but the additional mids and punchiness take a little bit away from it in a jazz context, and I feel that the cleans in a 59n are 'prettier', but only very slightly. That being said, I'm talking very slight differences, I'd still feel very comfortable bringing this guitar into a jazz gig (as I have for years with the Cool Rails I had previously in the neck position of this guitar) or to a setting that requires pretty pristine clean tones. By far, it's the best neck humbucker I have ever played, I actually have trouble reviewing the bridge hum in comparison because it's hard for me to turn off the neck.
Bridge Humbucker:
This one is a lot different than anything I've tried in my guitar before. The lowest gain Bridge Humbucker I've ever used has been the PATB-3, and even that has a lot more output than people give it credit for.
The pickup has a fantastically beautiful clean tone. This may be the result of never using a lower output humbucker, but I find the clean sound on the bridge is full, clear, strong and punchy.
With gain, they have just a hint of bridge pickup twang and to them in my guitar, but without the intense honkiness that started to grate on me with the PATB-3 after almost 5 years of using it. The pickup is also not quite as fat as the PATB-3, but I'd say this is a really good thing as every single note in a chord will ring out clearly. That's sort of a stereotype to say, but I do feel that it has a naturally open and BRIGHT sound that allows you to play complex chord voicings under gain, and still have them come through with a fair bit of clarity.
When you dig in they get this cool classic 'KRANG' sound, I'm not really a classic rock player at all (I was big on it in highschool, before anyone asks about my username) but I'll be damned if anyone tries these pickups and doesn't want to do their best Angus Young or Jimmy Page impression. I think the Duncan site describes it best, in that they have just a touch of very musical compression, the bridge sounds open and 'big' but it compresses just the way you need it to when you want to accent a single note in a complex chord, or just when playing with dynamics in single note lines.
The bottom end is relatively tight (at least in comparison to the PATB-3 that was last in this guitar) but I wouldn't really call it a tight pickup. It's more about the sponginess and bounce. Think more in the range of EVH than Metallica. Modern metal players might want to look elsewhere but if you're more into the Scale the Summit, Periphery or Animals as Leaders prog metal sort of thing, the string clarity could do wonders for you.
Middle/Mixed/Interracial setting
The output is very well matched to the neck humbucker, once I got the heights dialed in for both there isn't a change in volume at all, making the middle position all the better. I've never been a fan of the middle position in an HH setup before, but having such a matched sound between the two really makes that middle position a 'halfway' point between the bridge and neck tones. The clean tone in this setting is the best, just the absolute best. It has all of the benefits of the clear, sparkling bridge and of the warm neck. It's just amazing.
Under gain, I've been doing the Jimmy Herring thing where I roll down the neck humbucker a touch to get a warmer version of the bridge tone. These pickups do his tone EXACTLY, for what it's worth. It's quickly becoming my go-to lead tone on this guitar. Doing the opposite and rolling off the bridge a touch is also becoming one of my favourite rhythm guitar tones on this guitar, it just sounds so jangly and open like the bridge WLH but with a dousing of warmth.
TL;DR
They're great. They are both really big, open warm, punchy and articulate. I use them for jazz, fusion and 'progressive' music, (what a terribly undescriptive term) as well as in the Soul/Blues band I play in, and in each setting they have elements that absolutely shine. They have very musical/singing mids and have a small touch of compression that feels amazing when you dig in. The cleans aren't the most pristine I've ever heard (and are a bit more towards the woody end of the spectrum, due to the mids, but that might me more your thing) and they are a touch too punchy in a solid-body guitar for trad jazz, but those are very minor concessions to how amazing these pickups sound for just about everything.
I'd gladly answer any questions or if there are any other elements I missed. Sorry for the sheer length of this, I was just in a writing mood.
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